Growing up, I loved the Bailey School Kids series. It was a fun way to mix mystical elements into reality. In this one, the school gets a new janitor who may or not be Santa Claus.

Fun story with interesting events. I'll admit the kids are kind of jerks in this one (playing tricks on the janitor, making fun of fat and short people), but overall it is entertaining. There are definitely some cringe-y moments, but to be fair this was published in 1991, before the mainstream fat acceptance movement. There are definitely some flaws, but overall it is still a fun book.

By famous author/poet Phyllis McGinley, this quaint children's tale told alternating in poem and story. Mrs. Claus is known for influencing the Mr. and giving him his good ideas, but this year she has thought of a radical idea. It makes Santa so angry he goes to sleep for a nap Christmas Eve, telling no one to wake him-- he will do it himself. The hour has come for Santa to begin his delivery ride, but cannot be roused. So, Mrs. Claus decides to make the trip herself, implementing her new idea. She dresses up like Santa and delivers "skis for the bookworms, books to read on rainy Sundays for the Baseball Breed; For girls who had nothing but dolls on hand, nice red dump-trucks for dumping sand; Nice soft Pandas, huggable and fat for little boys waiting for a cowboy hat; useless presents, extravagant and funny for children with never a cent of money; practical presents for those more rich; for studious fellows, balls to pitch; ribbons for tomboys, jacks for their brothers....." and the change from the expected gifts delights the children that Santa is even more endeared to them. We loved the book.

When I was young, the toy-mation movie adaptation of this book was one of my favorite Christmas movies ever. It still is, although I don't watch it with the regularity of, say Muppet Christmas Carol. It was always a bit obscure -- it was not played every year like Rudolph or Frosty, and a lot of people had never seen it. I was thrilled to finally find it on VHS and later on DVD so that I can enjoy it for every Christmas and share it with my own kid(s) someday.

All of that preamble is to say that it was impossible for me to read this without my perception being clouded by nostalgia. Because the movie actually follows the book very well, reading the book was like seeing the movie in my mind once again -- and we've already established that I love the movie. Objectively speaking, if I read this without the context of my fondness for it, it may have felt a little like one of those books that was just one thing happening after the other without a really clear through-line. On the other hand, the prose was very often quite beautiful and it was easy to get swept away in the magic of the setting and the nostalgia of a Christmas origin story. I do think it's a pity that this is not as well known as Baum's Oz books, because I found it to be just as magical (although, like the Oz books, it did get a little clunky at the end.)

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